David Elginbrod eBook

The boy burst into tears when informed of his father’s
decision with regard to his winter studies, and could
only be consoled by the hope which Hugh held out to
him —­ certainly upon a very slight foundation
—­ that they might meet sometimes in London.
For the little time that remained, Hugh devoted himself
unceasingly to his pupil; not merely studying with
him, but walking, riding, reading stories, and going
through all sorts of exercises for the strengthening
of his person and constitution. The best results
followed both for Harry and his tutor.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Explanations.

I have done nothing good to win belief,
My life hath been so faithless; all the creatures
Made for heaven’s honours, have their ends,
and good ones;
All but...false women...When they die, like tales
Ill-told, and unbelieved, they pass away.

I will redeem one minute of my age,
Or, like another Niobe, I’ll weep
Till I am water.

BeaumontandFletcher. —­
The Maid’s Tragedy.

The days passed quickly by; and the last evening that
Hugh was to spend at Arnstead arrived. He wandered
out alone. He had been with Harry all day, and
now he wished for a few moments of solitude.
It was a lovely autumn evening. He went into
the woods behind the house. The leaves were
still thick upon the trees, but most of them had changed
to gold, and brown, and red; and the sweet faint odours
of those that had fallen, and lay thick underfoot,
ascended like a voice from the grave, saying:
“Here dwelleth some sadness, but no despair.”
As he strolled about among them, the whole history
of his past life arose before him. This often
happens before any change in our history, and is surest
to take place at the approach of the greatest change
of all, when we are about to pass into the unknown,
whence we came.

In this mood, it was natural that his sins should
rise before him. They came as the shadows of
his best pleasures. For now, in looking back,
he could fix on no period of his history, around which
the aureole, which glorifies the sacred things of the
past, had gathered in so golden a hue, as around the
memory of the holy cottage, the temple in which abode
David, and Janet, and Margaret. All the story
glided past, as the necromantic Will called up the
sleeping dead in the mausoleum of the brain.
And that solemn, kingly, gracious old man, who had
been to him a father, he had forgotten; the homely
tenderness which, from fear of its own force, concealed
itself behind a humorous roughness of manner, he had
—­ no, not despised —­ but forgotten,
too; and if the dim pearly loveliness of the trustful,
grateful maiden had not been quite forgotten, yet
she too had been neglected, had died, as it were, and
been buried in the churchyard of the past, where the
grass grows long over the graves, and the moss soon
begins to fill up the chiselled records. He was
ungrateful. He dared not allow to himself that
he was unloving; but he must confess himself ungrateful.